Thursday, February 23, 2012

it doesn't have to look good...

to taste good.

Need some dinner inspiration? This week I made roasted chicken and veggies as well as penne puttanesca. Both kind of ugly but really delicious.
The roasted chicken and vegetable meal is one of the quickest and easiest meals I've done lately. Here's what I did. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Cut one onion in large chunks as well as carrots. Toss these on a baking sheet with a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper and a bit of balsamic vinegar. Chop potatoes and add to the baking sheet. Cut up a whole chicken and arrange the pieces among the vegetables. Drizzle olive oil, salt, pepper and granulated garlic on the chicken and potatoes. Chop about a half a cup of kalamata olives and toss with the rest of the veggies. Sprinkle with a bit of fresh rosemary. Roast in the oven for about 45 minutes, tossing the vegetables around periodically. I flipped the chicken pieces half way through cooking as well. At the end the chicken will be juicy and tender while the potatoes are soft and the carrots and onions are caramelized. This was simply delicious. The caramelized onions were my favorite part.

I made the penne puttanesca with some veggies I had in the fridge. Cook about 3/4 lb of penne pasta. Heat olive oil in a pan and add vegetables of your choosing. I had fresh spinach and a yellow pepper begging to get eaten. Add a few cloves of chopped garlic to the veggies. When cooked a bit add a can of tomatoes with the juices. Add some kalamata olives, capers (2 Tbsp) and a bit of salt and pepper. I had some leftover roasted chicken from the previous meal so I chopped it up and added it to the sauce. Next toss the penne with the sauce, add freshly chopped parsley and Parmesan (if you have it). This dish was amazing and super easy.

3 comments:

Becky said...

Sara, I am the admin for Hardship Homemaking next month. (It's a blog of ideas for live at hardship posts.) Would you be willing to guest post these recipes there? I think they'd be awesome for that blog. I also wanted to tell you I loved your pics at the resort. Gorgeous!

Sara said...

Becky, that would be great. I'd love to contribute to your blog. Hardship homemaking is my life right now!

Becky said...

That's what I thought! And you seem to have some terrific ideas. The blog is here: hardshiphomemaking. blogspot.com

This month's admininstrator has mostly been focusing on contingency planning but I am better at recipe type stuff so I'll be doing more of that in March. I'd love to have your contribution! If you shoot me an email, I can send you more info about contributing. My email is smallbitsfs @yahoo .com

Thanks Sara!